Finally “finished” 《尋找十二少》! “Finished”, of course, is to be taken with a pinch of salt for once again, there are lots of new vocabulary (and not just the Cantonese specific ones) waiting to be explored further at another time at my own leisure.
A pic of Happy Bubble Tea Stitch ↑ next to book to reflect my good mood! 笑
(↑ pic was taken the day I found and purchased said book, as well as having my first cup of bubble tea in years that day! Double 囍 happiness! 笑 Though I soon regretted the tea and remembered why I'd abstained for so long before because, Can't. Take. That. Level. Of. Sweetness. Now. 笑)
That much for the good…now for the complaints! A pic of my Bast cat ↑ giving the side-eye to reflect…skepticism? 笑
One of my biggest gripe, I felt I was misled into thinking this was a full-length novel, which it didn't turn out to be at all.
It was really a novella or short story, and the other chapters that I had thought were linked at first, turned out to be chapters to stand-alone short stories!
And there I was, reading about three chapters in, trying to map in my head how all these new events and characters would tie up to the “new 如花 and 十二少”, before it started to dawn on me that things weren't linking up, and were not meant to link up at all! Silly me! ಠ_ಠ 笑
But in my own defense, as mentioned earlier, I feel I have been misled.
The blurb on the back of the book only featured a summary of the titular chapter, 《尋找十二少》. There was no other indication that other stories were bundled together with it, and the book was labelled as a 小說 (novel) and not 中篇小說 (novella).
The minimal reviews and advertisements from book retail sites I could find on this also gave no indication it was a short story collection, everyone only focused on 《尋找十二少》 so…ಠ_ಠ
Being a short story collection is not a problem of course; I love short stories too! It's just the feeling of deception that I have a problem with.
And it sure didn't help that the titular story turned out to be quite disappointing too! As one reviewer already succinctly summed it up, 《尋找十二少》 can basically be called 《胭脂扣 2.0》 (Rouge 2.0).
It's 《胭脂扣》 all over again (and a highly condensed version too of course, it being so short), just set in the year 2020. So we have superficial changes (that doesn't add anything significant to the existing story) like 如花 using a “fortune-telling” App (with the help of 2020 袁永定 and 凌楚娟) in an attempt to seek out 2020's 十二少, instead of consulting an actual fortune-teller like in the original (and shown in the movie too).
And of course with the setting being 2020, it gave the author opportunity to slip in little nuggets of current affairs and talk about (in my personal opinion — vent) her frustrations with what was going on in Hong Kong then, and is still going on now.
Now I can understand her frustrations, even if I'm not a native Hong Konger, and she as the author of this work and the original too, has her right to write what she wants, really.
But dare I say? Retconning (she even ignored certain things from her own novel and referenced the film adaptation changes instead!) her own past successful (and beloved) story, only to weigh the new version down with political opinions — perhaps because I hate to deal with politics myself — doesn't seem like a good idea to me!
All that did was throw a shadow over the entire story, which I know was probably her point!
I get it really, the contrast between “Golden Age” Hong Kong vs. Hong Kong now that the author is trying to show, and she probably did intend and hoped for readers to reflect and not shy away from potentially uncomfortable topics. I get all that but…
Because said story was already so established and beloved before (with a 36 year gap between this and the original novel and a 34 year gap with the much beloved film adaptation), to now have another version that is largely still the same as the first (only with political statements on the side), only taints the original for me. I think it would have been better if she had just written a new story altogether and left a classic alone!
I wouldn't have minded the political opinions (and probably would have even thought her a genius for successful incorporation) if “2.0” had any “real”, new imaginings to offer, but it didn't and just felt like a total cop out. (ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻
The other (also supernatural-themed) stories available in the collection were also mostly meh…to me (maybe that explains why the reviews and advertisements only focused on the titular story! 笑), and a couple more were also slanted heavily towards political opinions while not being that engaging either so…let's just say that's not my cup of tea.
All in all, a disappointing purchase and I half wished I didn't buy it now. The one thing good I can say is, at least I can gain more new vocabulary out of reading this! 笑
P.S.: One thing that puzzles me though is, how did Lilian Lee manage to get this published? With her rather brazen political views thinly veiled in this book (the cover even showed images from the 2019 Hong Kong Protests on the streets), I'm surprised it didn't get censored! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But even though I can't say I enjoyed this book much, I'm glad it made it through censors!
